Many users like to multi-task while watching television. In some cases, a user may like to access webpages, such as a social networking website or a search engine website, or chat with a friend while watching television. These activities can draw the user away from television to a personal computer, a cell phone, or another network connected device.
Some television systems allow the user to display Internet content along with television content. Such a television system can allow the user to perform searches for content that is available on the Internet. For example, a user may browse to a website for accessing a search engine. At the search engine website, the user enters a search query that generally includes words, phrases, and/or other operators describing what the user is searching for. The search engine processes the search query and returns search results to the user. Such search results generally include links to webpages or other content available on the Internet that are responsive to one or more terms in the search query. The user can then select a link in the search results to navigate to the corresponding webpage. To control such a television system, a remote control that allows the user to navigate through television content is typically supplemented with a wireless keyboard that allows the user to navigate through Internet content.
With the advent of such television systems and as the number of media devices continues to increase (e.g., a digital video recorder), these combined user input devices suffer from various problems, such as the undesirable cost of multiple user input devices, a confusing number of functions provided by each user input device, and clutter in the environment where the television system is located.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide systems, methods, and media for providing an enhanced remote control having multiple modes.